Thursday, November 21, 2013

Australia road trip day 13 - Ashes match and Teneriffe park

21 November 2013I woke up to hear a strange and hilarious story from Viv and Appa. Apparently, around 1:30 am, a strange guy had entered our room (the door was closed but not locked), and fallen asleep next to Appa! At first Appa thought it was Viv (possibly kicked out of the bed by Xena and me), but he realised it wasn't, he woke Viv up. Viv then woke up the guy, who absolutely insisted that it was his room! He even said that all his stuff was in the room. Viv showed him that it wasn't, and the stuff was actually ours. It was only when he saw Xena that he came to his senses and exclaimed, "Oh! There's a baby here!" He then quickly scuttled away.

The next morning, Viv and Appa left for the match very early. I brought up the matter of the strange guy in our room with the host, who apologised profusely and then dragged the guy out of his room to apologise too. It was then that I realised that the guy had no memory whatsoever of what had happened the night before. He had been dead drunk. Anyway, once I told him everything, he was very apologetic. In fact, he was so miserable that I actually felt sorry for him.

I got Xena ready and took her to the Teneriffe park, which was a walk away. Viv had shown me on the map how to get there. The weather was nice so it was a pleasant walk. The park was very nice. There were swings and rocking horses and lots of trees, butterflies, brush turkeys and other beautiful birds. Unfortunately, I did not have a camera with me. The men had taken the digital camera to capture the match and I did not want to lug the heavy DSLR to the park when I already had a heavy bag and not-so-heavy child to lug. Xena had a great time at the park. She chased a brush turkey around, and remarked to me, "Momsie, look! Turkey ne yellow necklace pehna hai!"

We saw a lady with a dog exercising, and Xena immediately said, "Xena wants to touch the friendly dog!" The lady was very amused and let her touch the dog. She also made me laugh hysterically by referring to the baby swings with the two holes on either side as "Diaper wala swing!"

Another lady came with her son and Xena instantly became friends with him. She said, "New friend and Xena play on swings!" They had a fun time playing together. The lady was very impressed at Xena's vocabulary and said, "Wow, she's very articulate and talkative." After a while, both kids started digging the ground with sticks together. When some dirt flew from Xena's stick on to the lady's shoes, I pointed it out to her. She looked very apologetic and said to the lady, "Aunty throw dirt on Xena's shoes!" The lady was very amused at this invitation for revenge.

Soon, it was noon and we headed home and I gave her a bath. I made some cup o' noodles for lunch. Xena saw the steam coming out of the kettle in which I was boiling the water and immediately remarked, "Just like Puffing Billy!" I had my lunch and she had her milk. I had managed to keep her entertained for the first half. Now it was time for me to unwind while she napped, and think of things to do in the second half.

After she woke up, we played in the room for a while. Then we read some books. When the sun started going down, we went out for a walk. We met a lady on the way who looked at Xena and said, "What a beautiful child!" Xena smiled shyly when I asked her to say 'Thank you'.

After a short walk around the neighbourhood, we got home. Appa and Viv got back around 7 pm and recounted the details of the match. They looked very very tanned; it had been a super hot day at the match. Appa, Viv, whenever you read this, please add some details from the match!

We walked to a Mexican stall and packed dinner. We also bought some Baccardi breezers to accompany it. We ended the day with dinner at the patio. Next up - Ferry trip around Brisbane